Managing ESXi 4.1 with vMA 4.1 on VMware Workstation

vMA is available as a Virtual Appliance (OVF) from VMware. To install it on VMware Workstation 7, open Workstation and select Import or Export to import a new OVF, the URL for the latest OVF for vMA is on the vMA download page

Once you’ve done that boot the vMA in workstation and check the console, you will be prompted to provide a secure password for the vi-admin user. Once you’ve done that, the network config wizard will start. You can use DHCP to configure the network, then provide a hostname, or you can specify your network settings manually.

The wizard will then reset the network interfaces and bring up the new settings.

To re-run the network config wizard, log onto the console and use the following commands:

cd /opt/vmware/vma/bin

sudo ./wmware-vma-netconf.pl

After this, I was able to access my vMA by SSH – PuTTY is my client of choice.

Joining the vMA to the domain for AD authentication

If you want to use AD authentication with your ESXi hosts, you can join them to the domain – it’s the same with the vMA. To join the vMA use the following command:

sudo domainjoin-cli join <domain-name> <domain-admin-user>

It will then prompt you for the root password (for the sudo) before it prompts for your AD admin password! I had errors with it saying ports weren’t open. The most likely cause for that is time so make sure that your server is running in UTC mode (this matches your ESXi and is compatible with your Domain Controller). These steps are taken from Simon Long at The Slog:

sudo rm /etc/localtime

sudo ln -s /usr/share/zoneinfo/UTC /etc/localtime

If you use NTP to sync your environments time, it might be worth adding in your NTP servers to the vMA.

sudo nano /etc/ntp.conf

Add in your ntp servers under the heading: # Use public servers from the pool.ntp.org project.

Configure ntpd to start on reboot:

sudo /sbin/chkconfig ntpd on

Restart ntpd:

udo /sbin/service ntpd restart

Make sure your NTP servers are reachable:

sudo ntpq -p

The final domain join looks like this (sorry for redaction, one day I will have my own test environment!):